Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Le Leche League of Washington Conference 2010: Food Edition

This last weekend I attended the LLL conference with my family in tow. There were SO many GREAT speakers to hear, sessions to attend, and information to learn. It was also an awesome opportunity to spend time with friends and meet other like minded people.

Because of the amazing array of topics represented, I am having a little difficulty processing it all, so I have given myself permission to start with the easy stuff, and work into the more technical and then emotional aspects. So, this first post is about the 2 sessions I attended that spoke about food.

This was my first session of the conference, and while interesting, I think the information was a little hard to follow. Only because she tried to explain too much for the time limit we had. Eating for healthy thyroid is different than eating for insulin help or over all hormonal health. Much of it was common sense: more whole foods, less process and refined foods, exercise. I didn't get any good resources, aside from her personal site, but that is not short of some great information!

This was a very fun, light class. We discussed how the Puget Sound is a great area to eat a locavore diet, because we have such an array of possibilities open to us. Using the idea of "Local" being within a 200 miles radius, we have an abundance of fruits, veggies, seafood, honey, grains, and proteins. Food grown in their optimal environment, allowed to grow in their seasonal times are able to fully process their nutrients, and require less fertilizers/pesticides. They tend to grow better, on their own accord. Also, plants that have the chance to ripen on the plant have fully developed flavors that aren't possible when they ripen off the plant. Food also tends to take on the flavors of the areas they are grown in, so native soil better accompanies the taste of the food.

It was also interesting to talk about food native to the area being nutritionally appropriate for the consumers of that climate. Warmer climates are abundant in fruits and leafy greens, cooler for dense grains and dark greens. This allows for better fat retention to keep warm or moisture rich to keep cool and hydrated.

Canning, drying, preserving foods at their peak is the best way to enjoy your favorite flavors throughout the year, when out of season. Also, everything has a peak season, even meat and eggs taste better and offer better nutrition when given time to naturally traverse their life cycles and grow to their optimal range for butcher.

These were fairly straightforward sessions, with little to now emotional processing to do (though I suspect I would feel otherwise a few years ago...)so this post was fairly simple. I hope the others go as well!

2 comments:

there were so many great sessions to choose from. i went to mostly parenting sessions, cause that's where i need the most support. and now i wish i would have broken it up a bit cause by sunday evening i was just overwhelmed and had a hard time paying attention. plus, i completely overdosed on Naomi Aldort. the only thing i took away from her sessions was OMG WHAT A WEIRDO.

my favorite was Talking to your kids about sex & What Would Mammals Do.